Thursday, December 27, 2012

Florence Gachanja-Williams waited for
the cameras to be set up. She had already been prepped, her makeup done and
rehearsed on her speech. The media was already waiting to popularize her – the
newest presidential candidate to join the race to State House.

But she was no
ordinary politician – she was young, just turned twenty-three, and brains to
match her age (she had a masters from the University of Edinburgh). Her
intellect told her that she could go for it; she was the president that the
country needed.

Age was just
numbers!

However, she was
ready to face the seasoned, veteran, politicians of the Kenyan politics, some
of whom were an enigma.

When she was
given the thumbs up, she walked to the podium, smiled and waved at the people
who had turned up for the launch of her political party, her vehicle to State
House, and her manifesto.

She faced the
cameras, leaned to the microphones and began her speech, accentuating each word
spat by the autocue with an Anglophone twang. She had been born and raised in
Britain, but it was time she traced her roots, and with purpose.

As she spelt out her
political objectives, she occasionally caught glimpses of familiar faces –
ambassadors, dignitaries, political heavyweights – faces that were the engine
and fuel for her political dream.

Her speech was
so moving – highlighted the burdens of debt, diseases, corruption, violence and
domestic terrorism and the scourge of tribal clashes that had become the brand
of Kenya in the whole of Africa and world.

She turned to
the cameras, pressed the back of her wrists to one eye. Her personal assistant
(and campaign secretary) had dabbed the edges of her wrist watch and pantsuit
coat with ammonia. The sting drew the required tears.

She wiped her
cheek and hardened her countenance. Tears were just fine, but she did not want
to appear weak.

Well, they
served the purpose.

By morning the
following day, all major dailies and the papers that were struggling to remain
in business, even gutter press, ran her teary, beautiful face on the front page
with the headline; ‘The Crying President.’